Typically, a server is a hardware computerized-device having software with a specific purpose in a network shared by multiple users. Servers generally have pre-installed software to perform a dedicated service. For example, a Web server refers to a computer system dedicated to a Web server application. Likewise, mail servers, database servers, print servers, network access servers and other similar servers exist to perform the corresponding function. A server usually requires an end user to ship the hardware back to the manufacturer to fundamentally change the purpose of a server. The manufacturer would then use a coded key, such as a digital signature, to burn a new digital image into the server hardware in order to change the purpose of a server, for example, from a mail server to a print server. Accordingly, a server manufacturer typically installs a digital image onto the server prior to sending the server to the user. A digital image is usually a file in a compressed file format that contains an exact replica of the applications, operating system, and configuration settings of a fully operational source computerized device at the time when the digital image was created.
Integration of a server farm deployment has typically required manual coordination of the protocol for network monitoring and control, such as Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), the protocol to build images for servers in the server farm, the deployment protocol, and the components within the network. A user, such as a system administrator, configures servers having pre-installed digital images to operate with the network protocols and monitoring and control protocols. After the digital images and software have been installed, the user configures each component in the network to have links to each other to work as a clustered group. As a last step, the user then typically utilizes a deployment protocol to create an operational server farm. A server farm typically refers to a cluster of servers and other networked components that work together as a group. The server farm components are linked together to handle variable workloads, communicate with each other, and/or to provide continued operation in the event one component fails. Protocols such as SNMP generally have no protocol to build digital images for servers as well as no deployment protocol to strategically arrange the networked components in an operational topology.